Jeff Bingaman: “So, Mr. President, the threat of a rogue nation really cannot and should not be the justification for this bill and the…”

“So, Mr. President, the threat of a rogue nation really cannot and should not be the justification for this bill and the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars. But let us also look at the technical side of national missile defense. As the senior Senator from Ohio, Senator Glenn, has said many times on this floor, we do not today know how to do this, whatever a contractor may claim. With ICBM's we are talking about bullets intercepting bullets with closing velocities of up to 10 miles per second. The President and Secretary Perry propose to continue research in this area at the rate of half a billion dollars per year to see if we can solve the technical problems. That is an adequate amount in my judgment, given how little has been delivered thus far after the expenditure of many tens of billions of dollars. I am from Missouri like Harry Truman when I hear any promises about how close we are to solving the technical problems of national missile defense. Someone is going to have to show me with real test results. I have heard such promises before. The American people have heard such promises before. Mr. President, if the threat from rogue states is remote and capable of being handled by other means, as I believe it is, if we have no technical solution in hand, if we risk undermining the benefits of START I and the START II Treaty as well, then why on Earth should we move ahead to pass this bill?”